Alexandra Harwin is a partner and the Co-Chair of the Title VII practice group of Sanford Heisler Sharp, LLP, a national law firm with offices in Washington, DC, New York, California, and Tennessee. She received her law degree from the Yale Law School and her bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Harvard, where she was the highest-ranked student in her graduating class.
Ms. Harwin represents employees with a wide range of employment claims, including discrimination on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, and disability, in both public litigation and privately negotiated settlements. Ms. Harwin was recently named one of the Top 40 Under 40 Trial Lawyers in New York by the National Trial Lawyers Association.
Among her current cases, Ms. Harwin serves as counsel in Dickerson et al. v. Novartis Corporation and Alcon Laboratories, Inc., a class action and collective action alleging that a large pharmaceutical company discriminated against its female employees –directors, managers, specialists, and sales force professionals – in pay, promotion, and assignments. In Miller v. Zara USA, Inc. et al., Ms. Harwin represents Zara’s former general counsel in his claims that the Spanish fashion giant discriminated against him because he is Jewish, gay, and American. In Silva v. Giorgio Armani Corporation et al., Ms. Harwin represents Giorgio Armani’s former general counsel in his claims that the Italian fashion house discriminated against him because of his Mexican nationality and because he was battling cancer.
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Ms. Harwin has a longstanding commitment to civil rights and gender equality issues. At Harvard, she studied gender-based employment discrimination through the disciplines of history and economics, and her honors thesis explored how feminists addressed the subject of women’s unpaid housework. At the Yale Law School, Ali served as Managing Editor of the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism and helped design Yale Law Women’s annual survey of family-friendly law firms. While at Yale, she also conducted research on the history and prospects of using Title VII litigation to protect minority men from employment discrimination based on their criminal records.
After graduating from Yale, Ms. Harwin practiced at a law firm in Washington, DC, where she gained significant experience in all aspects of litigation, negotiation, and alternative dispute resolution.
In addition to her legal practice, Ms. Harwin enjoys writing for popular audiences about legal issues. Her writings have been featured in the New York Times and Slate.
